10 h. ago Petrassi: Concertos for Orchestra Nos 7 & 8 album review – dramatic power from rarely heard Italian master

Tonda/Rome SO/La Vecchia(Naxos)Francesco La Vecchia draws out the fierce contrasts of Goffredo Petrassi’s later music in this new recording of his final two concertos.Though his music is rarely heard in the UK these days, Goffredo Petrassi was one of the most significant and influential Italian composers of the mid 20th century. Born in 1904, just a few months after Luigi Dallapiccola, Petrassi’s early works were firmly neoclassical, but after 1945 he began to incorporate elements from his younger contemporaries in the European avant garde. He was also a distinguished teacher; among the many who studied with him were Ennio Morricone, Peter Maxwell Davies and Cornelius Cardew.Petrassi’s eight concertos for orchestra are at the core of his orchestral output, and Naxos has now released recordings of all of them. The pairing of the last two, composed in 1964 and 1972, are typical of his later music, trenchantly argued, with fierce contrasts between strings and wind. It’s music of great ...

Events

11 h. ago Ravel: Complete Orchestral Works II album review – Mallarmé miniatures shine brightly

Barron/Duhamel/OBC Barcelona/Morlot(L’Auditori)Ludovic Morlot creates a shimmering web around soprano Fleur Barron’s lucid vocals in Trois Poèmes, on an album that also showcases Shéhérazade and Don QuichotteThe first disc of Ludovic Morlot’s Ravel survey with the Barcelona orchestra of which he’s been music director since 2022 appeared last year. That included two of Ravel’s best known scores: the suite Le Tombeau de Couperin and the ballet Mother Goose. At the heart of this latest instalment are Ravel’s three orchestral song cycles: the mezzo soprano Fleur Barron sings Shéhérazade, the 1904 settings of poems by Tristan Klingsor, and the 1913 Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, while between them the baritone Alexandre Duhamel is the soloist in the charming product of Ravel’s old age, which was originally intended as a film score, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, from 1933.For all the oriental beauty of Shéhérazade, delivered with suitably seductive warmth by Barron, it is the Mallarmé min...

Politics

4 d. ago The Black Keys on their music industry nightmare: ‘We were angry. We wanted vengeance’

From botched tours to monopolised ticketing and vanishing payouts, The Black Keys are speaking out against a music industry they say is rigged. Ahead of the release of their 13th album, ‘No Rain, No Flowers’, the band speaks to Mark Beaumont about why they’re not backing down

Politics

6 d. ago Man charged with theft of Ozzy Osbourne tributes left by Black Sabbath bench

Parviz Jafari, 45, has been charged with theft of flowers left in memory of Ozzy Osbourne, and will be appearing before magistrates on September 3

Politics

6 d. ago Album reviews: The Black Keys – No Rain, No Flowers, and Memory of Jane – Unsinking the Cypress

The Black Keys sound surprisingly muted after experiencing one of their most tumultuous periods as a band, while Memory of Jane finds clarity on his delightful debut

Politics

7 d. ago Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 1 & 3; Two Scherzos album review – deft execution of the Russian’s early exuberance

BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds/Hallé Choir(Chandos)Capturing the momentum of two of Shostakovich’s first Soviet-era symphonies, this performance adds a pair of scherzos that pre-date even themIf the key stylistic reference in Shostakovich’s symphonies from the Fifth onwards would unmistakably be Mahler, his early symphonies show a much more catholic array of influences, and often hint at other directions his music might have taken had events in the Soviet Union allowed him the freedom of choice. The First Symphony in particular, composed in 1924-25, is an energised bundle of ideas derived from many sources, with the Stravinsky of Petrushka and the early neoclassicism of Paul Hindemith vying for supremacy in music that careers along with sudden changes of direction – alternating exuberance with flashes of pathos – which never fail to surprise.In what is the latest instalment of their Shostakovich series for Chandos, John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic are more effective in maint...

Politics

7 d. ago Ethel Cain: Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You review – a dark, Lynchian coming

The American singer-songwriter follows up her 2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’ with a concept album that’s often mesmerising

Politics

7 d. ago Amaarae: Black Star review – glamour, glitz and lust from a pop star who should be a supernova

(Golden Angel/Interscope)With a sleek dancefloor-facing sound, the Ghanaian American singer is deliriously in thrall to wealth and celebrity – but most of all loveFountain Baby, the second album by Amaarae, was a revelation – a sensual, funny, frank and musically dense record released in 2023 that established the 31-year-old Ghanaian American pop musician as a cultural force to match contemporaries such as Rosalía and Charli xcx. Although the songs are hedonistic – largely oscillating between wry flexes of wealth and lyrics about trifling with, and being trifled by, women in her orbit – she is also a realist: actions have consequences in Amaarae’s world, such as on Reckless & Sweet, as she wonders whether her lovers desire her or merely her money.Despite the ingenuity and complexity of her music, Amaarae has struggled to break into the mainstream, in the UK at least. A recent Glastonbury set felt sparsely attended and, aside from 2020’s Sad Girlz Luv Money, one of the most ...

Politics

9 d. ago Black storm warning paralyses Hong Kong as torrential rain triggers floods and landslides

Second black rainstorm in six hours forces closure of schools, courts and most public services

Events

3 w. ago Poor Creature: All Smiles Tonight review | Jude Roger's folk album of the month

(River Lea)Masters of atmosphere, Ruth Clinton, Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody contrast hauntological synths with robust noise on this playful debutThe latest gorgeous release from the fecund Irish folk scene doesn’t begin with bassy dread in the Lankum mode, but a mood of gentle, haunting psychedelia. Adieu Lovely Erin starts by evoking Broadcast swirling around a maypole; then it’s as if Cocteau Twins had been transported to a traditional music session. Its sweet, high female vocals also evoke the improvisations of sean-nós singing, while simmering, krautrock-like drums build drama.Poor Creature comprises three musicians expert in heightening and managing atmosphere: Landless’s Ruth Clinton, Lankum’s Cormac MacDiarmada plus live Lankum drummer John Dermody. Their debut album steeps cowboy songs, Irish ballads, bluegrass and other traditional songs in a misty, playful lightness that somehow also carries an eerie power. Bury Me Not is a 19th-century American song about a dying ...

Politics

4 w. ago Chloe Chua: Mozart Violin Concertos album review – teenage prodigy’s interpretations are balanced and mature

Chua/He/Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Graf(Pentatone)The Singaporean violinist plays Mozart with a clean focused tone, an elegant turn of phrase and a quiet wit. As Chloe Chua points out in her notes, Mozart’s Violin Concertos were written by a teenager – so why shouldn’t a teenage violinist do them justice? Chua – joint winner of the junior Menuhin Competition in 2018, aged 11 – was 15 and 16 when she made these recordings. The framework is conventional – there are no great surprises in the tempos, and she is backed by the modern instruments of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, who give an energised but refined performance conducted by Hans Graf. So far, so traditional. And yet Chua consistently holds the attention with interpretations that are notably mature: balanced, considered and never trying too hard. The faster movements having a gentle momentum, the slow ones plenty of space; everything Chua plays has a clean, focused tone, an unfailingly elegant turn of phrase and a quiet w...

Culture

4 w. ago Billie Marten’s Dog Eared is a brilliant, soothing album with a sense of looming danger

The Yorkshire-born singer-songwriter changes her approach for a hypnotic new record

Politics

4 w. ago Jim Legxacy: Black British Music review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(XL Recordings)The rapper and producer doubles down on his vaulting style, lurching from alt-rock to distortion and chipmunk soul on an astonishingly coherent and melodic third recordOn Father, the first single to be taken from Jim Legxacy’s third mixtape, the listener is offered a vivid image from the author’s past. The teenage James Olaloye, as he was then, is on the streets of Lewisham, the south-east London borough where he grew up. He is “rolling up a blunt, scheming for the funds trying to come up off the roads on my own two / I never had a father”. Inevitably, this means he’s up to no good: “Making money off a phone a key’s what they want.”It’s a familiar scenario in the world of UK rap, a genre in which you seldom want for bleak descriptions of the life its stars have left behind on often deprived council estates. But in the case of Father, it comes with a small, but striking detail. “On the block,” he attests, “I was listening to Mitski.” Continue reading...

Culture